If you've got a day or two, I would put them in a can of boiling water and cover it up to give some insulating effect. I would expect them to be a lot softer tomorrow, as most polymers can absorb very significant percentages of water. Warming them up again may make them softer still.
David Snyder
sparing nails and skin in
Auburn, CA
> This weekend I picked up a very nice Araya at a yard sale. It had
> obviously been sitting in somebody's back yard since it was nearly new.
> Last night I started to take it apart. It took me an hour to get the
> original adhesive-backed bar tape off the Win Pista bars. Now about the
> hoods. Thirty-some years in the California sun, etc. have made them one
> with the nice, new-looking Dia Compe levers. Is there something I can use
> to dissolve or at least, soften the hoods, or must I sit for hours
> painfully picking at them with my thumb nails?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Mark Fulton